Top Java books curated by experts

At MentorCruise, we are all about making the most out of the experience of others. As part of that, we have connected and asked dozens of experts and professionals about their favouriteJava books – and here are the answers.

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Top Java books recommended by experts
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Fundamentals of Java

Understanding the concepts of Java starts with understanding the fundamentals. On your way to mastery, it's crucial for you to understand how certain concepts were derived, and why things work like they do. Starting with these resources is the best way to do so.

Java Performance

Java Performance

Coding and testing are often considered separate areas of expertise. In this comprehensive guide, author and Java expert Scott Oaks takes the approach that anyone who works with Java should be equally adept at understanding how code behaves in the JVM, as well as the tunings likely to help its p…

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise.

Java SE 8 for the Really Impatient

Java SE 8 for the Really Impatient

Eagerly anticipated by millions of programmers, Java SE 8 is the most important Java update in many years. The addition of lambda expressions (closures) and streams represents the biggest change to Java programming since the introduction of generics and annotations.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise.

Head First Design Patterns Elisabeth Robson

Head First Design Patterns Elisabeth Robson

This book shows you the patterns that matter, when to use them and why, how to apply them to your own designs, and the object-oriented design principles on which they're based. Join hundreds of thousands of developers who've improved their object-oriented design skills through Head First Design …

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise.

Head First Java

Head First Java

Learning a complex new language is no easy task especially when it s an object-oriented computer programming language like Java. You might think the problem is your brain. It seems to have a mind of its own, a mind that doesn't always want to take in the dry, technical stuff you're forced to stu…

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise.

Java For Dummies

Java For Dummies

The book starts with an overview of computer programming and builds from there; it explains the software you need, walks you through writing your own programs, and introduces you to a few of the more-complex aspects of programming in Java.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise.

Core Java, Volume I--Fundamentals

Core Java, Volume I--Fundamentals

This first of two volumes offers in-depth coverage of fundamental Java programming, including object-oriented programming, generics, collections, lambda expressions, concurrency, and functional programming. Classic material for Swing UI programming is included for those who need it.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise.

Additional Java Reading

These books are not required for you to learn Java, but they are highly recommended for you to deepen your knowledge.

Java Performance Binu John

Java Performance Binu John

Java™ Performance covers the latest Oracle and third-party tools for monitoring and measuring performance on a wide variety of hardware architectures and operating systems. The authors present dozens of tips and tricks you’ll find nowhere else. You’ll learn how to construct experiments that iden…

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise.

Beginning Programming With Java for Dummies

Beginning Programming With Java for Dummies

This book includes practice questions and exercises to help reinforce your understanding of Java. Before you know it, you'll be using variables, values, and types, and you'll understand loops, objects, and classes. Start programming in Java and creating your own projects right away!

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise.

Spring in Action

Spring in Action

Spring in Action, 5th Edition is the fully updated revision of Manning's bestselling Spring in Action. This new edition includes all Spring 5.0 updates, along with new examples on reactive programming, Spring WebFlux, and microservices. You'll also find the latest Spring best practices, includin…

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise.

Java generics and collections

Java generics and collections

The Java Generics programming is introduced in J2SE 5 to deal with type-safe objects. It makes the code stable by detecting the bugs at compile time. Before generics, we can store any type of objects in the collection, i.e., non-generic. Now generics force the java programmer to store a specific…

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise.

Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code

Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code

Refactoring is about improving the design of existing code. It is the process of changing a software system in such a way that it does not alter the external behavior of the code, yet improves its internal structure. With refactoring you can even take a bad design and rework it into a good one.<…

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise.

Effective Java (3rd Edition)

Effective Java (3rd Edition)

Since this Jolt-award winning classic was last updated in 2008, the Java programming environment has changed dramatically. Java 7 and Java 8 introduced new features and functions including, forEach() method in Iterable interface, default and static methods in Interfaces, Functional Interfaces an…

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise.

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